Download Record

Author

Date

Advisor

Second Reader

Metadata

Abstract

The use of the HF radar to measure and map surface currents has proliferated along the coastlines of many countries for purposes of Search and Rescue, Oil Spill Management, Oceanographic and Fishery Science studies. In the US Navy, these surface current maps are being evaluated for operational use in real-time data assimilating coastal circulation models, and direct monitoring tools in environmentally sensitive operating areas. The SeaSonde HF radar, a DF system, was considered in this study. It uses the MUSIC algorithm to recover bearings from the Doppler backscatter spectrum of the sea surface. By varying the radial and antenna patterns, the simulated backscatter spectra were passed through the SeaSonde software suite for radial pattern recovery. This unprecedented approach directly evaluated SeaSondeâ s MUSIC, and the associated uncertainties were examined against the simulated inputs of (1) fixed amplitude and phase deviations from the ideal antenna pattern, (2) measured antenna patterns and (3) decreasing SNR. It was found that using the measured antenna pattern to recover radials yielded least uncertainty, but a definitive prediction of MUSICâ s radial-recovery capability in relation to the patternâ s complex amplitude and phase structure remained illusive. The results highlighted the need to calibrate the militaryâ s DF-systems for accurate azimuth recovery.

High Frequency (HF) radar backscatter instruments are being developed and tested in the marine science and defense science communities for their abilities to sense surface parameters remotely in the coastal ocean over large ...

We present the results of idealized numerical experiments
to examine the difference between tropical cyclone
evolution in three-dimensional (3-D) and axisymmetric (AX)
model configurations. We focus on the prototype ...

Impact of HF radar surface-current assimilation on ocean circulation model predictions in the Monterey Bay area is studied and evaluated during the time frame of the Autonomous Ocean Sampling Network (AOSN-II) experiment ...